STARCROSS

 Is it Earth approach time already?  No, that's the alarm bell ringing!  Now
what?  Time to get up and see what's up on board the Starship STARCROSS. Up and
at 'em and don't forget that tape library. Go starboard and push the red button
to turn off the bell.  Push the blue button and go starboard. Get the suit and
safety line then back port to the control panel.

 Ah, peace!  Since you can hear yourself think again, sit down and fasten your
seatbelt.  Let's see what the hullabaloo's about.  Read the screen.  So that's
it, a mass is out there...maybe it's another black hole or asteroid, or who
knows!  Look up the mass's location on your starchart and key the coordinates
into your onboard computer as follows:

 TELL COMPUTER "RANGE IS xxx"
 TELL COMPUTER "PHI IS xxx"
 TELL COMPUTER "THETA IS xxx"

 After several seconds of blinking lights, the computer should say the
coordinates have been fed into the navigation prograam and it's waiting for
confirmation.  Tell the computer "confirmed" and wait for the countdown.  Good
thing your seatbelt was secured or you would've bounced all over the cabin! Now
you're on your way to the mass.  So you'll have to keep typing in LOOK or WAIT
until the STARCROSS is held firmly by the grappling hooks of the....

 Alien Artifact?!?  My stars, what have you gotten us into?  Well, too late to
worry about that now.  May as well have a look around.  So unfasten your belt
and stand up.

 Open the inner door and exit.  Close the inner door and put your suit on. (In
space, no one will hear you explode if you come into contact with vacuum!) Open
the outer door and go outside.  Your first problem stares you in the face. An
alien sculpture beckons you.  This is actually the red airlock's welcome mat.
But before it will allow you entrance, you have to tell it where you're from.
Upon closer examination, you see it's really just a bas-relief of the solar
system.  So push the fourth bump (which represents Earth). The whole sculpture
recedes except for one hexagon. Push it and a black rod is thrust forth.  Take
the rod and voila!  The airlock opens!

 Enter the airlock and close the outer door.  Remove your suit and open the
inner door.  The air is breathable...for a while, that is. We're off to collect
rods to repair the systems that have failed and stalled the Artifact in space.
The black rod is not one of the required rods, so drop it here and head out.

 You're in a long red hall with side corridors.  In the Artifact, the standard
directions can replace the fore, aft,starboard and port directions, so if you'd
prefer using north, south, east and west, feel free!

 First, we're going to repair the air supply. So go fore, starboard four times,
fore and starboard. You're in some sort of Intergalactic Zoo and there's a nest
of creatures that look like a cross between rats and ants! Ferocious little
beggars aren't they?  Look closely at their nest and you'll see a red rod has
been used as part of the structure.  Trying to just take it isn't notably
helpful since these little critters nip at you everytime you try. So the only
way to get the rod is to destroy their nest and divert their attention.  Throw
the tape player at the nest.  The rat-ants go into furious activity repairing
your handiwork!  While they're busy, get the rod and your tape library back.
Now go port, aft, port, and aft.  There's a blue airlock here.  So open the
airlock and go down.  Now close the inner door and open the outer door. There's
an umbilical connecting the blue airlock to a series of bubbles. Go aft to the
bubbles and another umbilical connects the bubbles to a ship grappled just like
yours is!  Go aft to the ship and look!  There's a multi-eyed creature staring
at you.  It looks like a spider, but don't worry, it's friendly and certainly
very lonely.  Wonder what would perk it up? Say, turn your tape library on and
play it.  Well, well, well, look at that guy!  He's all ears!  Give the spider
the tape library and, in gratitude, he gives you a yellow rod!  Nice guy! Take
the rod, bid farewell to your new-found friend and head back fore to the blue
airlock.  Enter the airlock, close the outer door, open the inner door and go 
up twice.

 We're now going to repair the lighting and air supply aboard the Artifact.
You're standing inside the Inner Region of the Artifact. Evidently, the aliens
recreated an ecosystem which sheltered a race of weasels and their food
supply...Unicorns!  But you haven't got time to explain to the weasel hunting
party that unicorns are extinct. If you don't fix the air supply, more animals
will become extinct...including you!  So go aft and you see a covered hatch.
Open the hatch and go down.  You're now in the Repair Room. Get the metal and
ceramic square you see lying here then take a look around. My goodness look at
all those slots!  What goes where?  Well, logical deduction tells you that you
should put the yellow rod in the yellow slot.  Do so.  Now about those red
slots: There are three of them and depending on what sort of gas you're used to
breathing (the aliens thought of everything!)will dictate which slot you choose
to put the red rod in.  The dots are representations of gases, and if you look
very carefully, you'll see the second slot's dots represent oxygen. So put the
red rod in the second slot.  You hear hidden machinery hum to life! Nice going!
Okay, back up and fore then down back to the blue airlock area.

 Now, go aft and port.  You've found the Weapons Deck and there's a strange
looking raygun laying here.  Get the gun and look inside.  Aha! A silver rod!
Get the silver rod and keep the gun.  Go back starboard, aft, port, and fore.
You're in the yellow airlock area.  Open the inner door and enter the airlock.
Now close the inner door, put your space suit on and open the outer door. Hmmm,
it's a bit tight, better try opening it again.  Oomph! Finally!  Okay, go
outside and attach your safety line to the suit and the hook you find here.
This will keep you from floating off into space!

 Go port and look!  There's a dead alien here tangled in the debris and it's
clutching a pink rod!  Get the rod and go back starboard, detach the line from
the hook and enter the airlock.  Close the door, remove the suit and get that
strange basket you see here.  It'll help you carry your rods. Insert the pink
and silver rods in the basket, open the inner door and go back up to the yellow
hall.

 Now go aft twice and then starboard.  You've found the laboratory! And look at
that!  There's a strange silver globe seemingly floating in mid-air!  If you
turn the dial to 1, the globe shrinks in size revealing a blue rod firmly
embedded in the globe!  Very curious!  Turn the dial back to 3 for now. Get the
red and blue disks you see hanging on the wall here. These disks are extremely
important since they are teleportation disks!They will help you out of several
tight squeezes later on.  But for now, they are instrumental in acquiring the
blue rod.

 Drop one of the disks on the floor and put the other one under the silver
globe. It doesn't matter which disk you use where since they both have the same
properties.  Now place the basket on top of the globe.  Let's see now, turning
the dial to 1 made the disk smaller, so turning it to 4 should make it larger,
right?  Right!  So turn the dial to 4 and...gracious! The globe expands to a
point where it is resting on the floor (and, o. ains the blue rod!Turn the dial
back to 3 and retrieve both of the disks, your basket and all the rods.

 Now head port and go fore four times, then port and aft.  You've located the
Computer Room and it's awfully quiet in here.  Let's see if we can get the old
girl humming again!

 Open the access panel and you see one of the cards is missing.  The metal and
ceramic square you're carrying would probably fill the gap!  So insert the
square, close the panel and turn the switch on.  Shoooom! The computer comes to
life with a bewildering blinking of lights and gauges. They won't mean much to
an alien (you!), so don't bother trying to decipher them.  The object of this
lesson, though, is in an output hopper...a gold rod! Get the rod and insert it
in your basket.  We're off to locate a janitor and a chief!

 Go fore out of the Computer Room then go starboard and start heading aft until
you see the mechanical maintenance "mouse."  When you do find it, drop one of
the disks and do an occassional "examine receptacle" until you see the disk you
dropped in its receptacle.  Then head aft until you get to the farthest aft
yellow hall.  From there go port twice then fore twice and starboard twice.

 You are now in the Village Center of the Weasel's Warren. If the Weasel Chief
isn't here, wait until he arrives.  He will start pointing at your spacesuit.
When he does, give it to him. He will be very grateful and offer you his wives
and children, but don't accept them.  Instead do as he did and point to the
brown rod he has hanging around his neck!  When he gives you the brown rod,
he'll leave.  But don't lose him!  Follow him everywhere he goes.  If he stops
and is just standing there, do a "look" and he'll take off again. But whatever
you do, don't give up following him!

 Eventually, he'll lead you to the Center of the Warren and the entrance to a
green airlock, then he'll sit down and patiently await your return. So go down
to the airlock, and close the inner door. Open the outer door and exit into the
umbilical that's connecting the airlock to yet another alien spacecraft moored
port of here.  Inside, you find yourself in a cargo hold. Get the visor you see
lying here then go fore to the Control Room.  Shhhh! An alien commander's
skeleton reposes here in eternal sleep.  You seem to have discovered some sort
of altar, for scattered about are fruits and vegetables. Move the skeleton and
something falls to the ground.  It's a violet rod! Get the rod and insert it in
your basket.  Now you can also insert the brown rod in the basket.  You didn't
have a chance to do so before because you were so involved following the chief!
Now drop the other disk you have and step on it.  You're instantly transported
to....

 Say...where the heck are we?  Looks like some sort of garage or something. And
look over there...a garbage dumpster filled to overflowing with trash! Let's go
do some trash searching and see what we come up with.  Hmmm, there's our other
teleportation disk.  Further digging reveals all sorts of junk, but finally you
find a green rod! Get the green rod, insert it in your basket and let's get out
of here.  There's only one exit so go fore and you're in a room on Ring Four.
Go port twice, fore twice, starboard, fore and port.  You've found the
Observatory!  What a strange projection! Use the visor to look inside the
projector and you see a crystal clear rod there!  Get the rod and insert it in
your basket, drop the visor and go starboard.

 Time to get the artifact re-programmed and moving again! Go aft twice then up
to the Inner Region.  Go aft twice then starboard. You're at the base of a very
tall tree and it's climbable.  So go up the tree twice to the top.  Gravity is
very light up here and you can see, within jumping distance, a silver slot next
to a door leading into a Drive Bubble.  So jump and insert the silver rod into
the silver slot.  Glory be!  The door opens and you scamper inside.  There,
floating in the weightlessness of this place is a white rod. Get the white rod
and insert it into the white slot.  Now exit the Drive Bubble and go up on the
Drive Bubble.  On the other side of the Inner Region you can see the Control
Bubble.  But how to get there?  Well, let's jump to get started in that
direction.  Now if we just had a propellent of some sort.  Ah...the raygun!
Fir le.  So go down and insert the gold rod into the gold slot and enter the 
Control Bubble.

 This is it, the very heart of the Artifact.  Looking around all you see is a
crystal clear slot.  Insert the crystal rod and long-dead machinery hums to life
and reveals five different colored slots...blue, green, violet, brown and pink!
Insert your remaining rods in their correspondingly colored slots.  As you do
so, spots of the same color appear next to each slot.  These spots are the
trajectory, speed, course and map controls. First press the large pink square
until you see the inner solar system from the Sun to Jupiter.  Now press the
brown spot until you see Earth displayed.  Select the speed of the Artifact by
pressing the green spot until you see a slowly flashing series of dots.
Finally, set the orbital course to a circular one by pressing the violet spot.
Now we're ready to start the Artifact heading toward Earth.  Press the blue spot
to start the age-old engines and look.  You're heading toward Earth in a slow,
grand trajectory!  As you approach Earth and slowly slide into permanent
planetal orbit, the viewscreen comes to life showing one of the Aliens who built
the Artifact.  His congratulations and warmth pour from the speakers and all
Earth rejoices with the return of the Galactic Overlord!